As the Shin Hills Field Force approached the entry to the defile that would lead them into the Shin Valley, they had no idea what awaited them.
Being an old hand ans well experienced in fighting the frontier tribes, Sir Hector Boleyn-Green took no chances and covered the advance of his main force by using his two Companies of Frontier Rifles as flank guards.
As his foremost troops could see no sign of any Shinwazi defenders, the Field Force advanced cautiously toward the defile.
Suddenly shots rang out ... and Sir Hector turned to Joseph Warburton (the young journalist from the 'Eastern Star' who was accompanying the Field Force) and said '
That's not muskets! The blighters have got modern rifles! There's going to be some stiff fighting today, of that there is no doubt!'
Unfortunately the Britannic troops were at first unable to see where the shooting was coming from, so whilst the rest of the Field Force deployed into line ...
... the Frontier Rifles began to climb the nearby hills.
From their new vantage points, the Frontier Rifles could see the Shinwazis, who were occupying positions on the slopes above the defile.
As his Artillery Battery and Machine Gun Detachment were not yet in a position from which to engage the enemy, Sir Hector ordered his infantry to advance.
This brought one of the Frontier Rifle Companies into close combat with a group of Shinwazis ...
... and after some stiff hand-to-hand combat the Rifles were forces to fall back.
On the other flank the second Company of Frontier Rifles engaged the Shinwarzis whilst the two Companies of Macfarlane Hignlanders moved forward.
Now that his Artillery Battery was able to engage one of the bands of Shinwazis, it did so ...
... and caused the Shinwazis to withdraw!
Covered by rifle fire from the Company of Frontier Rifles, the Macfarlane Highlanders advanced into the defile, whilst on the other flank ...
... the other Company of Frontier Rifles, supported by two advancing Companies of the South Yorkshire Regiment, engaged the other Shinwazis with rifle fire.
Seeing that the
farangi* troops were going to push their way into the defile, and not wishing to suffer unnecessary casualties, the Shinwazis withdrew, leaving the Britannic troops to tend to their wounded and prepare to advance towards the Shin Valley.
Farangi is the Persian word for foreigner, and originally referred to the French (or Franks). The word was later absorbed into Urdu and thence into Hindi, where it is regarded as a rather derogatory slang word for a foreigner.
During this battle I tried a few experimental rules:
- Units firing uphill reduced the range of their weapons by 1 hex for each contour line their fire crossed.
- Units expended 1 hex of movement to climb up 1 contour line.
- Units could not spot an enemy unit unless they had line-of-sight to it and they threw a 4, 5, or 6 on a D6 die. (I decided that the die scores would be modified by +1 if the enemy unit had fired at the spotting unit, +1 if the spotting unit was within 3 hexes of the enemy unit, +2 if the spotting unit was within 2 hexes of the enemy unit, and +3 if they were in adjacent hexes. This meant that units in adjacent hexes had to spot each other!)
These rules seemed to work quite well, and I will continue to experiment with them in future battles.
